If someone is asking a lot of money just to teach old techniques under a new name, that... doesn't seem right. Even if the students are told in the textbook that the technique is actually old and known -- are they told it before they pay for the lessons?
That assumes that the main point of the lesson is to teach specific techniques. That doesn't seem to be the case from what I understand by talking to Val about CFAR's strategy at the LW community camp in Berlin (I wasn't at an actual CFAR workshop).
Oh, I am so rational that I absolutely do not have to pay attention to the domain experts, because there is absolutely nothing
CFAR does happen a bunch of scientists who are domain experts in their advisory council. They read scientific papers. I don't think it's fair to say that they "pay no attention to the domain experts".
albeit a total beginner in the domain - invented it
What makes you think that the CFAR folks are total beginners?
Is rationality training in it's infancy? I'd like to think so, given the paucity of novel, usable information produced by rationalists since the Sequence days. I like to model the rationalist body of knowledge as superset of pertinent fields such as decision analysis, educational psychology and clinical psychology. This reductionist model enables rationalists to examine the validity of rationalist constructs while standing on the shoulders of giants.
CFAR's obscurantism (and subsequent price gouging) capitalises on our [fear of missing out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out). They brand established techniques like mindfulness as againstness or reference class forecasting as 'hopping' as if it's of their own genesis, spiting academic tradition and cultivating an insular community. In short, Lesswrongers predictably flouts [cooperative principles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle).
This thread is to encourage you to speculate on potential rationality techniques, underdetermined by existing research which might be a useful area for rationalist individuals and organisations to explore. I feel this may be a better use of rationality skills training organisations time, than gatekeeping information.
To get this thread started, I've posted a speculative rationality skill I've been working on. I'd appreciate any comments about it or experiences with it. However, this thread is about working towards the generation of rationality skills more broadly.